“Finn.”
I didn’t realize how close Emma had gotten until I caught an intoxicating whiff of her scent.
Oranges and some kind of flowery lotion. I couldn’t help but wonder if she tasted as good as she smelled.
“You okay?”
I forced a smile onto my face and nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”
She pulled her sleeves down around her hands and balled them in her fists, looking doubtful. She bit her bottom lip, studying me before a smile lit up her face.
“What are you thinking about?”
She stood up. “I’m thinking we should do something fun. It doesn’t always have to be gloom and doom you know.”
I raised a brow. “You do know I’m dead, right?”
“Come on. Humor me.”
“What did you have in mind?” I could think of a few things I would have done if I was alive. I imagined what it might be like to take Emma by the hand and pull her down onto the sofa with me. To kiss her until neither of us could breathe. To feel her laughter against the hollow of my neck.
“You want to watch a movie?” She followed my gaze to the living room.
I shook the fantasy out of my head, embarrassed. “Um…yeah. Whatever you want.”
“Do you even like movies?” she asked. “What do you even like to do?”
I shrugged, thinking back to a time I’d forced myself to forget. I thought about Pop’s old records.
The scratchy, haunting voices that rippled through the living room at night when he and Mama thought Henry and I were asleep. We’d get up sometimes and sneak into the hall to watch them dance.
Pop would catch us giggling and wink at us, then press his finger to his lips. Then he’d dip Mama back and make her laugh in a way I’d never heard a girl laugh before. “I used to like music.”
“Really? I’ll be right back!” Emma darted down the hall.
I groaned. “You don’t have to drag your music thingy out here. I’m fine, really. We can watch the movie.” God, I didn’t think I could take the screeching sounds that Emma called music today. Not after all that death. I just wanted-Emma marched down the hall carrying a big brown case. She lugged it into the living room and set it on the table, then popped open the lid. A record player. She glanced up at me with those heavenly blue eyes and smiled.
I gaped at her. “How do you…”
Emma started digging old records out of a drawer across the room. “It was Dad’s,” she said, flipping through a stack of records. “Well, his father’s anyway. Dad liked to listen to these after Granddad died.”
She finally settled on one and crawled across the carpeted floor with it tucked under her arm. She hid it from me as she placed the needle on the vinyl disc and sat back smiling. “I always loved this one.”
The needle gave life to the music, and Billie Holiday’s butterscotch-rich voice wafted into the air around me. I swayed, unable to stop myself. I remembered the smell of flour and sugar on Mama’s hands, the cadence of Henry’s laughter as it mixed with mine.
Emma sat on her legs and hummed along to “The Very Thought of You,” her eyes closed, completely unaware of the world around her. Her eyelashes were soft as feathers against her face, her humming a soft vibration in her throat. The ceiling fan ruffled the gold threads of hair around her temples. A hair tickled her cheek and her nose twitched.
I could feel the thought coming before it even formed. It started in that sad, hollow space in my chest, then worked its way up my aching throat. I could feel it behind my lips, fighting to be heard.
Burning me up inside. But I couldn’t say that to her. I didn’t have a right to. So instead I let it run loose in my head. Three words that wouldn’t stop
I couldn’t stay still any longer. I crossed the room until I was standing over her, this girl I loved.
She stopped swaying and looked up at me. I reached out my hand. “Dance with me.”
Emma just looked uncertainly at my outstretched fingers and chewed on her lip. “But if you touch me, you’ll…”
“Then we won’t touch. Just dance.”
Emma stood, pulled her hands out of her sleeves, and stared at her feet, looking lost. I stepped closer, so close I could see my shimmer reaching out toward her skin, like metal to a magnet. I never needed to breathe, but now, in this moment, I couldn’t stop my lungs from pumping.
We moved together wordlessly. A step to the right. A smooth glide to the left. My shimmer sparked and hummed with energy the closer she got. I wanted to do like I’d seen Pop do with Mama, tip her back and make her laugh like a girl in love. I didn’t. Instead, I settled for leaning in as close as I could, letting my unnatural breaths coat her neck. She shivered.
“Hey, at least it won’t hurt if I step on your foot,” I said.
Emma chuckled and reached her hands up as if she meant to place them on my shoulders, then stopped herself and dropped them back down to her sides. “I never know what to do with my hands.”
“Well…” I leaned back and adjusted, so that my hand was out waiting. “If we were doing this for real, you’d put your left hand here.” She hesitantly raised her hand and placed it in front of mine so that our palms nearly touched. “And in a
Emma released a pent-up breath and laughed. “Wow.”
I shrugged and kept moving. In the background, Billie crooned and somehow managed to put exactly how I was feeling into words.
“The mere idea of you. The longing here for you. You’ll never know, how slow the moments go, till I’m near to you,” I sang softly into Emma’s hair. Billie sounded way better of course, but the words felt too right in my mouth not to say out loud.
“You’ve done this before,” Emma said. “I can tell.”
“What?”
“Danced with a girl.” Without actually touching me, she went through the motion of running her palms over my chest. I ached for her to close that space, but she never did.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to steady my voice. “Just once. School dance.”
Emma smiled and did a little twirl. “What was her name?”
I couldn’t think. Didn’t really want to think about anything that didn’t begin and end with Emma, but a flash of a girl in pink satin swaying nervously in my arms shook me. I smiled. “She wore a pink dress. I remember that. And I was so nervous I thought I might throw up.”
Emma giggled. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of hearing her laugh.
“Did you love her?” she asked quietly. We stopped moving. Silence swallowed us. Then the crackling hiss of the record sounded and a new tune began.
“No,” I said. “No, I didn’t love her.”
“Have you…” Emma took a step back and tucked her hair behind her ear. She wouldn’t look at me.
“Have you ever loved anyone…like that?”
I may not have been able to say the words, but I couldn’t stop myself from moving toward her.
Emma looked up at me, the question still lingering in her eyes. With an overwhelming burst of resolve, I let the words free. “Just you.”
Her eyes widened and glistened with moisture. I didn’t even think she was breathing. I wasn’t breathing, either. The moment was too big to let even a breath ruin it.
“Emma…” I couldn’t finish. I felt raw and needy. Alive. I leaned down, my lips just a whisper away from hers. I could feel the air clawing at me, trying to pull me from this moment, threatening to turn me to vapor if I closed the last bit of space between us, if I didn’t get my emotions under control. I didn’t want to let it. I-The front door opened.
With a gasp, I let go, tumbling into vapor. Emma stared through me looking frantic. Reaching out.
